Ties between bin Laden and Saddam? Yes, maybe any day now

Al-Qaeda and Iraq are separate enemies, despite all the propaganda suggesting otherwise.

How refreshing to see minds so limber, and governments so willing to change course. There must be something about the war against terrorism that frees the mind from its normal moorings.

You'd understand, for example, if Alexander Downer had been loath to paint such a vivid picture of the way Iraq tortures and maims its dissidents. After all, it was Downer and friends who, just months ago, described those fleeing this very regime as queue jumpers and criminals, and had them consigned behind razor wire.

Yet there he was, a week back, talking in Parliament of the torture and rape of those opposed to the regime, the use of electric shocks, amputations, acid baths, eye-gouging, blowtorch-branding and the cutting out of tongues. All in a country to which Australia has sent back several hundred fleeing refugees.

And what of Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State? In late October 2001 he was testifying before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and was keen to isolate al-Qaeda from the rest of the Arab world. And so he mocked bin Laden's claim to be interested in the people of Iraq.

"We cannot let Osama bin Laden pretend that he is doing it in the name of helping the Iraqi people or the Palestinian people," he said.");document.write("

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"He doesn't care one whit about them. He has never given a dollar toward them. He has never spoken out for them."

But now, in the rush to justify an invasion, everything is different. Here's Powell, speaking this week before the US Senate Budget Committee: "He [bin Laden] is in partnership with Iraq. This nexus between terrorists and states that are developing weapons of mass destruction can no longer be looked away from and ignored."

Why the change? Could it be that the public, for good reason, remains highly committed to action against al-Qaeda, yet dubious about an invasion of Iraq? And so the two must be conflated.

Or throw in John Howard. Last week he became most upset when anyone suggested he had already pledged our troops to the US-led action. Yet there he was in Washington, only days later, blushing as George Bush thanked him for being part of the "coalition of the willing".

Or what of Tom Schieffer, the US ambassador? Schieffer's right: Australia has been beset by a wave of anti-Americanism - in particular, the belief that America is a bully which likes to stick its nose into the domestic affairs of others. And so the ambassador responds, in the process launching a political attack on Simon Crean and the Australian Labor Party. How wonderful to prove the case of your enemies, in the very breath that you rail against them.

More impressive still? Those who, at week's end, analysed bin Laden's latest speech, and discovered within it the final proof that al-Qaeda and Iraq were committed allies. This was some achievement, since bin Laden used the speech to refer to Iraqi officials as infidels and to Saddam Husein as a man who had lost all credibility.

Certainly, bin Laden suggested Muslims could make a common cause with the Iraqi regime, but only in the context of an American attack. Bin Laden's point is simple: true believers would normally shun the godless socialists of Iraq, but a US attack would necessitate some sort of temporary partnership - "without changing our faith and our declaration that socialists are infidels".

The US argues that Iraq should be attacked, partly because of its association with al-Qaeda. Yet the speech indicates something quite different: it's the attack itself which would bring together these two normally hostile groups. In other words, the link between al-Qaeda and Iraq is not a reason for invasion; it's more an outcome.

None of this, of course, is meant to argue that Saddam has no weapons of mass destruction, nor that al-Qaeda is not a real threat. Just that the US action appears to be raising the threat, rather than lowering it.

Supporters of war keep noting the amount of weaponry within Iraq, as if each satellite photo, and each phone intercept, makes the case for invasion more urgent. Yet these facts can be read in a different way: that for more than a decade Saddam has had warehouses full of weapons of mass destruction, but for reasons of fear, opportunity or ability has never made use of them outside his own borders.

Perhaps containment has worked. And, in the stepped-up way suggested by the French and Germans, should be continued. In this way we could focus our effort where the threat is greatest - and that, as the public seems to see with more clarity than its leaders, is with al-Qaeda.